In the current art, an electrical junction box to be mounted on a motor vehicle contains a fuse to prevent an excessive electrical current from being generated in electrical circuits in the electrical junction box. A spare fuse is attached to a spare fuse containing section in the electrical junction box in order to facilitate replacing a blown fuse with a normal fuse. The spare fuse containing section includes locking pawls projecting from the side walls of the containing section to engage stepped portions on the fuse to securely hold the fuse in the spare fuse containing section.
Recently, a low-height fuse having a substantially parallelepiped configuration (so-called “low-height fuse”) has been used in various applications. The low-height fuse includes an input terminal and an output terminal exposed from recesses in each end, respectively, in a fuse body rather than projecting from the bottom of the fuse body (as in a high-height fuse). Consequently, the heights of the side walls of the spare fuse containing section are reduced to accommodate the low-height fuse. Such low height side walls are more difficult to deflect such that, if the locking pawls provided on the low height side walls are relatively long, it may be difficult to forcibly remove the locking pawls from a mold during the junction box molding process. Although it may be easier to remove the junction box from a mold if the locking pawls are made smaller, the locking force is also reduced and the spare fuse is held less securely.
The present applicant has disclosed a spare fuse containing structure provided in an electrical junction box in Japanese Utility Model Public Disclosure No. HEI 7-9024 (JP-U-7-9024). As shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B, this structure accommodates a spare fuse 1 (a “mini-fuse” or “high-height fuse”) in which input and output terminals 1b project from a bottom surface of a fuse body 1a. The input and output terminals 1b are pressed into a clearance 2 in a spare fuse containing section. A clearance width is set to be narrower than a thickness of the input and output terminals 1b. Locking pieces 3 that project from the spare fuse containing section engage recesses 1c in a top end of the fuse body 1a to hold the spare fuse 1 in the spare fuse containing section.